The most recommended books on eunuchs

Based upon his classic three-volume earlier work, this book courageously boils down the thousand-year empire into a readable and understandable version. I found this work essential when I first decided to enter into a subject that I had become fascinated with but understood I needed a good, basic entry point to familiarize myself with before contemplating writing even fictional subject matter on the vast topic. It is not for nothing that we use the term “byzantine” as an adjective to denote complex or intricate issues, or so one discovers from Norwich’s easily readable synthesis. Still, this masterwork sorts out a thousand years of what has seemingly become one of the least understood and taught subjects of our own past as we move farther away from it in time and our focus has become more ethnocentric and biased toward the European viewpoint. I felt I knew these people well enough after… show more.

Mystery writer Steven Saylor’s recreations of late Republican Rome are the best out there. The Venus Throw finds Saylor’s detective, Gordianus the Finder, investigating the death of an Egyptian ambassador visiting the city. Through Gordianus’ search we meet a range of Romans known from historical sources including a noble woman, a love poet, and a eunuch priest of the eastern goddess Cybele. Saylor captures the variety of the city’s inhabitants and its places. You step into elegant houses, a dive bar with sour wine, and public baths where the floor is “heated to just the right temperature by the hot-water pipes underneath.” The Venus Throw is not the first entry in the Gordianus series but you can start with it, as I did, and then read all the others. One of these books’ many strengths is attention to the lives of slaves.

Byzantine history has only sporadically inspired historical fiction, although Empress Theodora, wife of Emperor Justinian, has had more than a few novels written about her. I’ve read and enjoyed many of them but this book is one of the best. Her dramatic life encompassed the deadly Nike riots, the building of the magnificent Hagia Sophia, and the Justinianic Plague. And did I mention that she was a courtesan prior to marrying Justinian? Martin’s Theodora is a glorious and sympathetic woman, even if flawed. The author tells her story wonderfully through the eyes of a court eunuch!

We follow the slave, Taita, an expert in art, poetry, medicine, and engineering after he is commanded to look after a young princess married off to the Pharoah. Smith’s portrayal of ancient Egypt during the era of the pharaohs will enthrall you, all while weaving a heart-racing tale of bravery, heroism, revenge, and love. I particularly had a fondness for the faithful and affectionate friendship he had with the Queen all throughout her life.

Just as reading the Cadfael novels of Ellis Peters primes so many people to want to see Shrewsbury so too do the murders and intrigues investigated by Jason Goodwin’s Ottoman administrator, the eunuch Yashim, provide the same incentive to walk around Istanbul. The old city encompassed by the Byzantine walls still has so many of the buildings which feature as the 1836 setting for the first of this series of unusual historical detective novels and Yashim’s creator is so obviously both a knowledgeable historian and a great storyteller. And you are going to fall in love with Yashim and his cronies – that’s a given!

Anne Perry is a superb mystery writer who ventured once into the Byzantine world with this novel and I am so glad she did. The story takes place in 1273, twelve years after the overthrow of the Latin rulers who had occupied Constantinople since the horrific attack by the leaders of the Fourth Crusade in 1204. The city still struggles to recover and a young woman, Anna Lascaris, who has learned medicine from her father, decides to disguise herself as a eunuch to more easily find out who framed her brother for murder, which resulted in his exile to a distant monastery. Poisonous political intrigue swirls around Anna/Anastasius as she practices the healing arts while searching for clues about who was the true killer.   

This is the second book in Mary Renault’s amazing Alexandriad, telling there story of the adult Alexander the Great through the eyes of the eunuch Bagoas.

It is truly astonishing, allowing the reader to effectively experience Alexander’s story in the first person as though one were actually there. The book introduces a brilliant cast of supporting characters too, bringing all to life in a way rarely repeated. Highly recommended. 

My favorite Ming dynasty source. It is rich with details on the eunuch institution during the Ming dynasty including its supply chain— the parts of society and of the world where eunuchs were historically drawn. Described here, are the various agencies within the Beijing Forbidden City where Ming dynasty eunuchs worked: Carpentry, Palace Servants, Palace Foods, Royal Clothing, the Nursing Home, and others, including a Toilet Paper agency. Readers not only gain insights on the imperial palace’s operations, but also on the eunuch ranking system, the emperors’ policies concerning eunuchs, and the rise of powerful eunuchs in the Ming secret police (Eastern Depot) and in Ming diplomacy. The latter came to its apogee with Admiral Zheng He, himself a eunuch, leading the Ming fleet during seven world voyages.

Sometimes, I’m hesitant to start a new series because I’m worried the author won’t stick the landing. If you’ve been considering The Radiant Emperor duology but had the same hesitation, let me reassure you: this ending delivers. 

He Who Drowned the World finishes the magic-laced, queer-driven retelling of the founding of the Ming Dynasty that started in She Who Became the Sun. The book’s three central characters—Zhu Yuanzhang, General Ouyang, and Wang Baoxiang—are all ruthless and damaged and monomaniacal in their own ways, and while I wouldn’t like to meet any of them in real life, I could have read about them for another 800 pages.

The scope is epic, the plot is tight, the tension is 11 out of 10, and I changed who my favorite character was in virtually every chapter. Please read this book. It’s unfairly good.

This book introduced a whole new way of travel and history writing for me. It beautifully merges the experiences of the author, his interactions with people, and the history of the city he is engaged with. I loved how he used everyday conversations and experiences to link it back to historical moments and told a chronological story of an amazing city. The book is important to me because it also taught me that travel writing can happen within one’s home and one’s own city. One doesn’t need to travel hundreds of miles, in a foreign country, to engage in travel writing. It helped me conceptualize travel writing in a new way.